Variation for Grain Mineral Concentration of Current and Historical Great Plains Hard Winter Wheat Germplasm

shift toward whole-grain wheat products in U.S. consumer diets increases the influence of wheat mineral concentration because minerals are most concentrated in bran fractions removed in milling to white flour but are retained in whole-grain products. Identifying variation within adapted germplasm is a necessary prerequisite for biofortification breeding in Great Plains winter wheat. Grain yield is the primary target of Great Plains wheat breeders, and previous studies have shown that as grain yields increased, grain mineral concentrations generally decreased. The efforts of breeders to improve yields in Great Plains winter wheat, therefore, may have had the unintended consequence of reducing grain mineral concentrations. Recent analyses also indicate that increases in global CO2 concentration may further decrease grain mineral concentrations (Myers et al., 2014).